


Shot Through the Heart: the Clinton Barton x Katherine Bishop Novella

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, Purple Prose, bad porn written badly on purpose, hawkeyesxmas, the romance novel you never wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:34:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8827012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: “After finding out that her fiancé was cheating on her, the beautiful socialite Katherine Bishop runs from the chaotic New York City to Waverly, Iowa, hoping for a chance to find herself again and for some needed peace of mind, but a chance encounter with the irresistible farmer Clinton Barton might change everything for Katherine. However, when her fiancé, Norman, tries to win her back, will Katherine succumb to the security that loving Norman brought with him, or will Clinton's southern charm win her over?" aka, the romance paperback novel that Kate never ever EVER wanted to even think that someone could have written about her and Clint.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



**Shot Through the Heart: the Clinton Barton x Katherine Bishop Novella**

“ _After finding out that her fiancé was cheating on her, the beautiful socialite Katherine Bishop runs from the chaotic New York City to Waverly, Iowa, hoping for a chance to find herself again and for some needed peace of mind, but a chance encounter with the irresistible farmer Clinton Barton might change everything for Katherine. However, when her fiancé, Norman, tries to win her back, will Katherine succumb to the security that loving Norman brought with him, or will Clinton's southern charm win her over?_

_\-- Shot Through the Heart: the Clinton Barton x Katherine Bishop Novella._

_By Nina Dormens”_

 

The only reason why Billy turns towards the magazine rack at the grocery store is because the paperback cover is a very familiar shade of eggplant purple. You do not get the right to call yourself Kate Bishop's best friend if you don't learn your purples, thank you, and even then it still takes him a moment to process what he's looking at.

“Oh. My. God,” he pulls at Teddy's arm as he picks up the paperback, looking at the pretty brunette model in short jeans who was redefined 'sultry' as she leaned against they very well defined-and-hairless chest of a blonde male model pretending to be a farmer (no shirt whatsoever, of course, but he was wearing the hat and an epic belt buckle that probably made sure he dropped his jeans fast, thanks gravity). “Teddy. Teddy, look at this and tell me I'm not making thing up.”

Teddy looks at him as if he had grown another head (and Billy pushes that aside because Teddy is almost always looking at him like that these days, and he hates that but he's not going to mention it because maybe if he doesn't say anything or do anything it'll simply go away before he manages to ruin the best thing that has ever happened in his life...) but he leans over him to look at the paperback.

“'Shot Through the Heart, _after finding out that her fiancé was cheating on her, the beautiful socialite Katherine B--_ ' OH MY GOD.”

“ _Right?!_ ” Teddy is looking at t he paperback with the same kind of horrified glee that Billy is feeling.

“It was strange enough that there are no Hawkeyes in this universe but...” Teddy shakes his head, taking the paperback to flip through it quickly. “Oh my god. What would Kate even say about it?”

“With how pissed she's at Barton?” Billy clears his throat, affecting his best Former It Girl voice. “'No. Futzing. Way. I'd rather never have sex ever again EVER. Besides, Clint is old enough to be my older-not-as-cool-dork-of-a-brother!'”

Teddy snorts, shaking his head, giving him back the paperback. “And that's when we remind her of her crush on Bucky?”

“She's never living that one down,” Billy says, and doubts before putting the paperback back on the magazine rack. Surely it wouldn't hurt if he--

“William Kaplan. We are NOT buying purple prose porn about our best friend,” Teddy says in a very final tone of voice, in the way that has Billy wondering, sometimes, if his boyfriend could have telepathy as a new and interesting power, or if he's simply that predictable.

Billy does not pout, thank you very much. But then: “What if Loki got it?”

“... I guess that would be okay.”

**

When Kate and David finish practicing and go outside of the cargo area, she's surprised at the laughter. The team still feels new, still getting together. Kate still misses, furiously, Eli and Cassie and Jonas, still wishes, sometimes, to see them there as well as the new team. But slowly, between missions and battles, they're starting to get together in something not too terrible, if she has to say so herself.

She smiles when she sees Noh-Varr laughing. That's another new thing, one that she so far likes. She hadn't really been looking for a relationship when she left New York, because after leaving (Clint) it felt a little too much like a (divorce) break was needed of anything serious and emotionally exhausting. She certainly never imagined that she'd end up living with her night one stand. But Noh makes things easy, most of the times, and being with him isn't the terrible thing that parts of Kate always feared, after her parents never-official-but-valid-anyway divorce. They're still in the getting to know each other part and, to Kate's absolute surprise, doing so while getting to have orgasms made things much better.

“What are they doing?” David asks. Billy and Teddy are almost crying as they laugh, and America, who is still very much a mystery for them all, seems grossed out. Loki is still reading from something, standing up on a chair, gesturing wildly.

Kate shrugs. “Let's find out.”

Loki is either too enthralled in what he's reading to notice them or he simply doesn't care because he doesn't pause, reading from what Kate realizes is a romance novel: nothing else would drip those levels of purple.

Loki takes a deep breath, as if he was pushing long hair over his shoulders, while the 'heroine' of the tale meets her love interest.

“ _\-- 'golden threads of light and the soft shadow of stubble on his face. He was tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, a beautiful body that went with the beautiful composition of his face. Katherine felt her heart stop as Clinton looked at her--'_ ”

Wait, what?

“Wait, _what_?”

Teddy and Billy stop laughing immediately. America rolls her eyes, muttering a 'thank demiurge'. Loki, however, beams at her.

“Kate! Oh, you must see this find that young William and Theodore here made, you are part of our last world's literature!”

Kate takes the paperback from Loki's hands, horrified at the cover – is that supposed to be her and _Clint_? - and to her best friends who are doing their best to seem innocent, the traitors.

“ _What_?”

“Well, we thought it'd make a nice souvenir, Katie,” Billy says, all wide eyes. Teddy is taking advantage of his 'butter-wouldn't-melt-in-mouth' natural expression.

“You bought porn. About me.”

“I'd hardly say it's _porn_ ,” Teddy says. “More like... fantasy material for bored housewives?”

“And hormone awakening for budding teenagers who haven't managed to go over the Safe Kids navigation on their home computers,” Billy says, with the grin that helps to remind that his soul still is the twin of Tommy's, no matter what happens.

“Could I keep on reading, Kate?” Loki asks, all bright eyes and dimples. “We have yet to reach a 'quivering member' in the prose!”

“I'm going to kill you three.”

But before she can do just that the alarms blast and she only has the time to throw it over the side before they're busy fighting for their lives and making another dimensional warp travel and then there was more asskicking and by the time she remembers the paperback, it has almost been a week.

Someone – David, probably, he's coming out to be the sensible one of the team, or maybe Noh to stop her from murdering half of the team – had retrieved the stupid book and left it with her things. And Kate should just let it be, really, but curiosity gets the best of her. She frowns, glaring at the stupid book that dares, _dares_ to have her colors on its cover, before thumbing it open.

_\--two blue eyes that shone like sapphires in an attractively tanned face stunned her. The afternoon sun melted his thick yellow hair into golden threads of light and the soft shadow of stubble on his face. He was tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, a beautiful body that went with the beautiful composition of his face. Katherine felt her heart stop as Clinton looked at her, something in his eyes that seemed to set her on fire._

_Katherine shook herself from the shock and offered her prettiest smile as well as her hand for a handshake._

“ _Good afternoon, I'm Katherine Bishop.”_

_Clinton Barton looked at the soft hand of that woman and how his hand swallowed it, not surprised by the lack of any kind of roughness on her skin, thinking that it was quite obvious that the woman in front of him, with her elegant clothes and delicate, almost doll-like features, had never had a rough day in her whole life, wondering how she would fit there. The farm wasn't the same since Bobbi had left him, almost three years ago..._

“ _And I'm Clinton Barton. Please, come inside, we have to discuss where you're going to stay?”_

_Katherine felt herself frozen for a moment. She had refused any of the money her father had thrust her way, her pride wounded when she had realized that her father had known of Norman's infidelities. Katherine had left New York with the bare minimum, her clothes and her car and what money she had had with her. If in the week it had taken her to reach the Barton Farm, Clinton had changed her mind about letting her stay, Katherine was going to be forced to ask her father to help her, and she would rather die than do so..._

_She felt uncomfortable as she followed Clinton inside his house. Why couldn't she find a man she could trust in? It seemed like every man she ever cared for only wanted to cheat on her and hurt her. Elijah who had promised her the world when they had been teenagers, Thomas who had broken up her heart after confessing he was gay, and now Norman...._

“ _Please, sit down,” Clinton told to the young woman, taking notice from her perfectly combed black hair, the diamond earrings on her ears, her skin tight jeans that did nothing to hide shapely legs, her lilac blouse that hinted just at a cleavage and designer shoes. Everything in Katherine Bishop spoke of sophistication that he doubted would ever fit at his farm._

“ _There was a problem at the guest house you would have been staying,” Clinton said carefully. “Three days ago there was a storm that hit the tree besides it and the roof caved in. It's going to take a few weeks, at least, before you can live there.”_

“ _But then...” Katherine started, tremulously._

_Clinton gave a small smile at the way her big blue eyes, eyes the color of the sky in the summer, looked at him._

“ _That's why, if it's alright with you, you're staying in a room at the main house.”_

_Katherine looked shaken. She had promised herself that she would never live with another man again, and yet now this..._

“ _I'm going to live with you?”_

_Clinton gave her a slow smile that seemed to spread like honey on toast, making Katherine shiver for different reasons now._

“ _The house is big enough for the two of us. We won't even see each other that much.”_

 

“As _if_!” Kate throws the paperback towards a corner. “Clint _wishes_ that he could make me swoon!”

“I don't know about the other Hawkeye,” Noh says as he comes inside the room, an eyebrow raised towards the book thrown to the floor, before looking at her with a smile that _does_ make her feel sort of fluttery inside, thank you, and not the emotionally stunted man child that had been her partner before, _thank you_. Noh closes the door inside her and starts taking off his uniform, and really, if Kate is going to start admiring anyone, it's going to be _her boyfriend_ , who has abs just as fine as Barton's, by the way (okay, not the shoulders, but, archer, no way to compete, no way, José). “But _you_ do make _me_ swoon.”

“Well, that's because you're smart,” Kate answers, kneeling on the bed as Noh comes near her, reaching for his belt and pulling him closer with that. “And I bet that I so can make you more than swoon.”

Noh smiles against her lips, then letting Kate pull him over the bed, and that's the last Kate thinks of that futzin' paperback for several months.

**

It would be a lie to say that Kate hadn't been aware of how much she had missed having a friend who was a girl, but while America helped her recover her stuff from her father's house (never his money, but pictures of her mom and Susan, the album full of newspapers clipping she made of the first missions of the first team, the jewelry her mom had inherited her, her archery equipment and well, being practical, her clothes) so Kate could actually move out and away from her father's life for good, she keeps thinking about that.

Because she loves her boys, and she has gladly come to include David into that group, and Noh-- well, being an ex boyfriend who is a teammate as well will take some time to get used to, but having another female friend again is nice in ways that, she had feared before, would make it feel like a betrayal to Cassie's memory.

But America is so different from Cassie that it has never feels like that. It does make her miss Cassie, of course, the way a lot of things did, but after five years, Kate is used to missing her giant girl.

“C'mon, America, let's go buy something to eat,” Kate says after she drops the last box.

“Pizza. And you're buying, princess.”

“Pauper now, more like it,” Kate says. “Remind me to buy a newspaper? I don't have wi-fi yet, and I need to find a part time job sooner rather than later.”

“Remember to buy a newspaper, you need to find a part time job sooner rather than later,” America deadpans, then laughs when Kate shoves her a little.

Luckily, there's a magazine stand in front of the small pizza place that Kate had seen when she had found the apartment, but before she can reach for the newspaper, a very familiar shade of purple makes her pause and stare.

“Oh. My. God,” she says, horrified, looking at the rows of 'Shot Through the Heart' with the freckled model and too-pretty-too-shirtless model. “ _What is that doing here_?”

“What?”

Kate points a finger towards the paperback, America looking at her with a blank expression. “It's the romance novel the guys found in Earth 1073!”

“Oh god, the hetero porn from whitehell,” America rolls her eyes.

“Excuse you, if it's porn involving a Katherine Bishop, then it's the bisexual porn from whitehell, thank you,” Kate says, reading quickly through a few lines before putting it out. “I don't get it. It's exactly the same book. How does it exist here?”

“The multiverse works in mysterious ways, princess, don't sweat it,” America says, an arm around her shoulders, paying for the newspaper and guiding her towards the pizza place.

Kate sighs. “I guess so.”

“Why does it bother you so much?” America asks. “You've been a hero for almost eight years, right? So you do know there's fanfiction about you.”

“Well, yes, but fanfic is different, that's fans making it out of appreciation. This is porn!”

“And the fanfic isn't? Because if so, princess, I've got news for you.”

Kate grumbles a bit. America accepts her soda from the waiter, and looks at her with a thoughtful expression. “What?”

“Is it because of Barton?”

“What? No. That's gross!”

America shrugs. “You just seem oddly offended about this particular thing existing.”

“I'm not!” Kate realizes she raised her voice so she takes a deep breath and a sip of her iced tea. “I'm not. It's just weird. I'm weirded out. It's not the strangest thing I've ever seen, not even in the top ten, but still, it bothers me. I have a right to that, no?”

America looks at her for a moment before she shrugs and smiles “Sure you do, princess.”

It's not because of Clint. Except, Kate thinks, it kind of is. Because her relationship with Clint still feels in the mend. He's still being a little too careful with how he talks with her, as if he didn't want to scare her away again. And she still feels like she has to knock when she goes to visit him and Lucky, has to ask if she can drink coffee even though when buying the replacement mugs Clint got tw H cups this time.

So it feels odd to know that in other universe, or rather, universes, including her own, there's a romance porn novel of them. And a bad one at that. It feels weird because she had told herself off about that, because she is Kate Futzing Bishop and she doesn't, doesn't pine over someone who doesn't want her. Because it's one thing to watch when he's shirtless (and she looks because, hello, eyes, and she has perfect 20-20 eyesight, thank you) and another one anything else.

And the existence of that stupid corny paperback that was still with her – _their_ – purple makes her think about the universe (universes?) where Clint says 'because I want to sleep with you'.

She pushes the paperback out of her mind, and instead goes with America to buy some needed groceries for her place, laughing as America tells her stories of the places she has seen and known, America leaving her outside her apartment building.

“Need anything else, princess?”

“Nah, it's just more unpacking to do.”

“Call me if you need anything,” America says, and Kate rolls her yes. “Oh, before I forget. Here. Housewarming gift.”

“America, you didn't have to,” Kate accepts the paper bag that America gives her, and then the futzing purple cover of Shot Through the Heart is looking at her. “I hate you.”

America laughs and laughs and Kate grabs her bags and climbs up the stairs to her place. Kate leaves the futzing book besides the groceries at her kitchen while she puts some order to the rest of boxes and places, keeping a mental list of stuff she still had to get, from the urgent to the would be nice to the 'when I get a paying job' maybe. She had been lucky enough to find a place that was already furnished, but there are still things that she would like, once money became less of a need.

By ten o'clock she's beat and she goes to grab an apple before she can go to bed and she sees the offending piece of crap. She glares as she eats before she sighs, looking through it again.

_A smile came to Clinton's face when he recalled the taste and softness of her mouth from just a minutes before, the fullness of her breasts pressed against his chest. It had been an impulse to kiss her, but after a few seconds it had changed from just an impulse but to an almost physical need to possess her mouth and something else._

_Unable to resist his urges, he leaned forward again and kissed her on the mouth. Katherine wrapped her arms around him and answered to his kiss, that was warm and moist and full of desire. Katherine felt as if a fire was rekindling itself inside of her, as if winter had lived inside her skin up until Clinton brought spring back to her. She was standing on her tiptoes to kiss him, pressing against him wantonly._

_Clinton kissed her with an ardour that made Katherine think would burn her, leaning his weight on his arms so he wouldn't crush her, his weight tensing the muscles on his arms alike steel. Katherine felt herself shiver when Clinton pressed his hardness against her thong, making her know how much he wanted her._

_Then, slowly, he undressed her, covering every inch of her skin with kisses. Katherine felt as if between her legs as if a faucet had sprung open, leaking of her desire for Clinton, urging him to go faster, but Clinton moved slowly, and when he finally took off her bra he stared at the perfect roundness of her breasts, like a cantaloupe perfectly cut in half._

_Katherine felt as if she was a kettle on fire, ready to start shrieking as her pleasure grew and grew. Katherine moaned when she felt Clinton's hardness press against the delicate petals of her lady flower, and she had to bite his strong, strong shoulder to stop herself from screaming her pleasure for the world to know as her body took that hard part of Clinton inside of her._

“God, this is almost enough to make you quit penis-in-vagina sex forever,” Kate shudders, closing the novel and shuddering as she goes towards the bedroom.

Talk about writing heteronormative boring _shit_. She wonders idly if she could sue out of defamation. If anyone ever read that and came to her expecting that coddling, missionary position style of sex with theatrical moans and kettle-shrieking – seriously, _kettle-shrieking_ , tea was now ruined forever for her – she would probably kick that person out of her bedroom and take three showers just to take off the assholish suckitude of that.

She does not have sex like that. And okay, so she doesn't have personal experience with how Clint had sex (and she doesn't want it, either!) but there is no futzin' way that they'd have that kind of passive, ridiculous, boring sex.

They are _friends_ , for starters. Partners. They'd be teasing each other, one upping each other, even daring each other. Clint would give _that smirk_ , the one that made him smile his shit eating grin that promised all kinds of troubles (which, incidently, was one of her favorite smiles of his) and he'd go 'Really? Well, go on then, girly,' and then he'd probably stay on his back up until Kate had him moaning and gasping. And she does like to be on top.

Or they'd have fast and hard sex against a wall or any conveniently flat-enough surface, with Clint's strong hands holding her up and pressing bruises on her thighs, because the one accurate thing of the stupid novel is that Clint's hands are huge compared to hers. All of Clint is huge compared to her, really, with him being more than a foot taller than her. So yeah, if they had wall-sex, Kate is certain that she'd end up with finger-shaped bruises on her thighs and ass, would get to press her thighs later to feel how the bruises ached wonderfully and for days she'd carry those bruises like a wonderful reminder of what was to come later. And she'd have to repay, of course, bites and sucking kisses on those archer-blessed shoulders.

Or, being honest, with them being them, there would be angry sex. Both of them screaming and fighting because if you put a stubborn jerk with an obstinate mule, sometimes it was the only way to have any kind of ineteraction. So yeah, Kate can picture them angry and fighting and then they'd be kissing as if they were biting, tearing off clothes and she'd be on top again and Clint's hands would be on her ass and--

“.., oh, futz,” Kate whispers in a very small, very frustrated tone of voice.

**

“Girly, do I've anything on my face?” Clint asks after a while. “Because you're starting to freak me out.”

“What? No, shut up,” Kate grimaces. Clint looks at her as if she was an alien – which, rude, and xenophobic, even if likely in their lives – before he turns around to keep fletching his arrows. Kate glances at him before doing the same with her own stuff.

So maybe she still has that tiny, minuscule, stupid crush on Clint. She should know better than now, and she did think that she was smarter than that, because after what she has seen Clint does, there should be no way that her nethers wanted to be near Clint's. But he is her friend, and they are partners. And, well. Abs and shoulders, everyone has weaknesses.

It doesn't have to mean anything. It most certainly won't mean anything, because even if she was willing – and that's a big if – Clint isn't. That hasn't changed, even if Kate's situation had.

She groans, putting her arrow down. Both Clint and Lucky turn to look towards her.

“Leg cramping,” she says, limping a bit as ants and needles seem to run down her legs, waddling towards the bathroom while she's on it to wash her hand and face and get her futzin' chill back on.

And the thing is that if she wasn't so hyper aware of that futzin' paperback novel existing, Kate wouldn't really have noticed the novel shoved with the newspaper remains that Clint hasn't gotten around to throwing out. The paperback is dog-eared and the cover has creases. The cheap paper of the pages has fingerprint smudges.

Kate walks towards the living room again, Clint still bent over as he finishes with his arrow.

“Clint?” he turns to look at her with what was beginning to be a smile that kind of freezes over when Clint realizes what's on her hand.

“Bobbi found it and she brought it,” Clint murmurs, and Kate thinks that maybe she is going to go and get her perfect 20-20 eyesight checked, because she has to be imagining that the tips of Clint's ears are getting red. “I think she was trying to get me to, you know.”

“Have sex with me?”

“What? No. Laugh. Or get angry. Or... snap out of the numbness I was in,” Clint shrugs, awkward. “But it's stupid, right?”

“Yes, completely,” Kate agrees, feeling awkward and as if there was something heavy and nasty in her chest. “I mean, I would-- you would-- we would _never_!”

“Not like that, that's for sure,” Clint shakes his head. “I mean, other than the name and a passing resemblance, it's nothing like us!”

“Zero sarcasm, little to no snark or banter, completely out character. They mostly just got the body description right.”

“Exactly!”

There's a terribly awkward silence then and Kate kind of fantasizes about stil being rich to be able to buy every single terrible copy of Shot Through the Heart and using it as target practice. Before she can do anything at all to escape from the hell situation, Clint clears his throat and stands up, taking the novel very gently from her hands, thumb rubbing against the cover. Even though Clint towers over her, he somehow seems small like that, and Kate feels her heart beating inside her throat somehow.

Clint speaks in a very soft voice after a few seconds.

“The thing is... I missed you, Katie. And I kept thinking... no way Kate would say this. She'd say this. And then I'd say this. And here, she'd do this. And then we'd be doing this or that and... sometimes I didn't know what you would do, here, in the every day, I just kept thinking of the last things I didn't say and the things you did say and I'd get stuck. But here... it was the closest to talking with you I had for a while.”

Kate thinks of all the things she could say. How she could remind Clint that she was a futzin' phone call away. A freaking email away. She thinks about reminding him of his 'not wanting to sleep with you' and the sheer hypocrisy of having been reading a freaking porn novel about the two of them and not saying anything.

But she doesn't want to fight when there are better things to do.

“You're such a jerk,” Kate says, grabbing a fistful of Clint's shirt to pull him down so she can kiss him.

For a second she worries that he won't kiss back, that he will still be 'well I thought about sex with you but I still don't want you, I have enough with fictional you and my hand' but he doesn't. Clint sighs against her mouth as if he had just left the cold to enter somewhere warm. Clint leans forward so Kate doesn't have to break her toes to keep en pointé and she can wrap her arms around his neck and when Kate bites at his lower lip he opens his mouth to let her deepen the kiss.

When they break apart they're both breathing hard, but Kate feels herself smiling, and she can feel Clint's smile against her mouth.

“So it took you terrible porn of us to make you realize that you do want me? I'm pretty sure I should be offended, Hawkeye.”

“Not all the porn was terrible, Hawkeye! I mean, the barn scene was better than the other one,” Clint says, nodding towards the novel, which he had dropped to the floor at one point.

Kate frowns. “What barn scene?”

“You didn't read the barn scene?” Clint asks. “You know, after Norman comes with the 'I promise I have changed' speech and Clinton and Katherine fight? With the fight and snark and you know, that that that, um, the thingy?”

“Um, no? I only read to the kettle-orgasm.” Kate blinked. “Wait, thingy? What thingy? Clint, tell me about the thingy!”

“I've got a better idea, Hawkeye,” Clint smiles at her his shit-eating grin and, goddammit, Kate feels a shiver start from her head to the tip of her toes. “I could just show you.”

 


End file.
